Oliver Willis at Daily Kos:

Two of the police officers who responded to the pro-Trump Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol are now suing the administration after it revealed plans for a taxpayer financed slush fund to reward insurrectionists and other Trump allies.

D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Officer Daniel Hodges and former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn filed suit on Wednesday. The suit seeks to block the so-called “Anti-Weaponization Fund” created after Trump dropped his suit against the IRS and “negotiated” with his own officials to create the $1.7 billion slush fund.

“These people, they should not be rewarded by the government for their attempt to overthrow the government. They tried to stop the peaceful transfer of power; they wanted to assassinate the vice president. They assaulted me and my colleagues, they instilled fear and terror in members of Congress, the staff, congressional staff,” Hodges told CBS. “There’s no reason that the government should be giving these people money.” More than 100 officers were assaulted by the insurrectionists, who were attempting to subvert American democracy and keep Donald Trump in office even after he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden. Insurrectionists have already been discussing their plans to cash in.

Enrique Tarrio, a leader of the far-right racist group Proud Boys told Reuters “my life was all fucked up because of this” and plans to take anywhere from $2 to $5 million from the fund.

The trauma caused by bad cops is all too real, and all too valid. But it cannot and does not erase the sacrifice and suffering that good cops endure for the sake of protecting people and upholding the law.

Whenever someone makes dangerously sweeping statements that amount to "There are no good cops", remember what the Jan 6 Rioters did to Officers Daniel Hodges and Michael Fanone for defending Capitol Hill. (And know that it was a mere fucking snapshot from all that transpired that day.)

Kerry Eleveld at Daily Kos:

The inaugural hearing of the congressional investigation into Jan. 6 kicked off with a palpable display of anguish from four officers who worked to hold the line that day as pro-Trump supporters sought to storm the Capitol and overthrow the U.S. government.

"Terrorists" was the word several officers invoked to describe the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 insurrection, and the four officers left no doubt about who incited them to action: Donald Trump.

"All of them—all of them were telling us Trump sent us," testified Sgt. Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police. "Nobody else—there was nobody else. It was not antifa, it was not Black Lives Matter, it was not the FBI. It was his supporters that he sent them over to the Capitol that day."

[...]

The harrowing accounts also made crystal clear that none of what unfolded on Jan. 6 is over for these officers. The weight of hearing each others' testimony appeared to bear down on the officers as they listened to their colleagues’ dramatic stories. But they not only bear the scars of the violence itself, they also continue to be traumatized by the efforts of GOP lawmakers to gaslight the horrific event out of the nation's conscience.

"What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens, including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend, are downplaying or outright denying what happened," explained MPD Officer Michael Fanone, a self-identified Republican who has become an outspoken critic of those trying to whitewash the actions of the mob. "I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn't exist or that hell actually wasn't that bad."

I am a Fort Wayne CPA